The Heart that Truly Loves
by Martienne
Summary: "The heart that truly loves never forgets." Oneshot/drabble compilation. Feel free to PM prompts or add them to your reviews.
1. Childhood 1-10

**Prompts from the 100 prompt challenge**

1. _introduction_:

He hadn't been allowed to cut the cord. They'd whisked the infant away instead and he stood nervously by, holding Allison's hand as their baby is rubbed with towels and they make her cry. Allison's face is lined but she doesn't express anxiety, just waits, quietly, until a nurse places the baby in her arms. She seems to feel slightly awkward, trying to settle the baby against her bosom, which strikes Leonard as sort of cute; it's not often she looks out of her element. Allison licks her lips before smiling just faintly and stroking the downy head with a finger. "She has your hair, Leonard," she says, and that's true until the baby's hair falls and it comes in fiery red.

2. _love_:

She never intended to become a mother, never knew what she'd do with a child, but she's surprised by the fierceness of her affections. Tears of anger spring to her eyes when she hears about her daughter's bully, and she immediately takes the girl to the backyard to spar. 'Never, ever let someone tell you you're less than what you are. You are amazing. You're my daughter and that means you're the most important girl in the world.'

3. _light_:

She doesn't understand, of course, and they can't explain it, but she looks fascinated as the candle flickers, the golden tones of it glimmering on her face and making the features of her face appear both blobby and angular as it dances. The two of them crowd next to her, eschewing the singing of the birthday song as trite, before blowing out the candle in unison.

4. _dark_:

Kisses are stolen in the light, accompanied by lingering touches, but it's not until their toddler is in bed and the lights are turned out, most nights, that the two are able to meet, whispering to avoid waking the child, and repeating the ritual that brought the child into their lives in the first place; the comforting, familiar folding of their limbs as they fit together just so, the hungry touch of his palms as he smoothes them over her breasts, her strained gasp as she envelops him.

5. _seeking solace_:

When the news comes he's unable to turn to the one person left, the one he should be closest to in the world, not until he manages to choke the news out to her, and she approaches to whimper and shudder against him, arms around his neck, but does not wail out for her mother as she begins to cry.

6. _break away_:

Her rebellion started at a younger age than many, influenced by the loss of both parents, one to death and the other to grief, and she becomes even more unruly when, already shattered and unable to bear her behavior, he sends her to live with his father, her grandfather. Lawrence is retired, is more patient, more understanding than his son, has more time for her. Afterward on visits with her father she holds this over his head.

7. _heaven_:

Bliss had been Saturday mornings with pancakes, warm syrup and fruit, him and Allison laughing at the antics of the baby as she clapped her hands and cooed, and Leonard thinks of those days, still longs for them, and wishes that year of stay-at-home motherhood had never ended.

8. _innocence_:

She knew her mother was a soldier, hadn't been ignorant of the fact there was a war on or the fact that her mother's career meant her life was in danger on a regular basis, but her mother's death dropped the bottom out of any trust she'd had for things going the way they were supposed to.

9. _dive_:

In the aftermath of the breathless emergency room visit, of the setting of the bone and the tears and confusion, Allison has to admit that describing the job of an ODST in such detail to a six-year-old may not have been the best plan.

10. _breathe again_:

Allison is already coming running when that thud is followed by a breathless silence, seeing in her mind's eye the child's face indubitably screwed up in a voiceless scream. Once she calms the girl and Carolina falls into a sniffling sleep does she turn in ire to Leonard and ask him if he would have bothered to respond to that noise had she not been here. No, he isn't a natural parent as she is but he isn't utterly cold. He protests and retorts and she rants and stomps, but finally they make up and she sighs as he kisses her.


	2. Grief 11-16

**Prompts from the 100 prompt challenge**

11. _memory_:

Sometimes the sadness trickles through him, pencil-thin rivulets that irritate just enough keep him conscious of his loss as he goes about his day-to-day life.

But when the memories crash over him like waves, heedless of the way they're pelting at him, the memories filter through like sand and cover his soul with a blackness that crushes the very breath from his lungs.

12. _insanity_:

He knows it isn't rational, the way he clings to every scrap of everything she's ever owned, ever touched, anything her scent remains on, and he definitely knows it shouldn't be worth paying the moving fees when he goes over the weight limit on the transport for the move to Reach.

He pays them anyway.

13. _misfortune_:

It's almost like he believes railing against the judgment of whatever fate rules the cosmos that this outcome is unfair will somehow undo it. Because she's survived a hundred situations worse than the one that took her like and no stroke of bad luck deserved the honor of saying it had defeated her.

14. _smile_:

Their daughter had inherited Allison's beautiful smile, and he can't help the pang he feels the first time her smile returns after her mother's death. One day he believes he will be able to smile with her again, be able to laugh with her again, but seeing her happy only reminds him that he has nothing but the ghost of a memory to cling to now.

15. _silence_:

She's learned not to try to speak to him when he loses himself, staring blankly into space from the couch, and she no longer bothers to ask him to care for her when it is mealtime or when homework demands her attention. There are days she never even hears his voice until she manages to shake him from his reverie long enough to say good night.

16. _questioning_:

She understands death, is old enough to realize it is permanent, but she doesn't understand the way the simple utterance of the word "why" seems to break her father, and she learns to search that question out on her own so she never has to see him reduced to a sobbing mess like that again.


	3. Cracks

The grief has been overwhelming these last few months, like it has never been. He's always missed her, of course, he's always had his sleepless nights where she's all he can think about, but at least when he got up in the morning there was usually a purpose to it. He worked hard, worked every minute he could, just to keep his mind focused on something else.

But now, he'd lost the things he worked for, one by one. His mercenaries scattered, their minds shattered, in many cases, by the pieces of him he'd intended to bring them strength. Even his efforts to clean up the mess he'd made of things had come to a disastrous close.

He raises a weary hand to push his glasses up out of the way, just far enough for him to rub at the corners of his eyes with his fingers. "Play it again, FILSS," he says, his voice sounding thin to his ears. This is all he has now, a memory he knows is only as strong as it is because he happened to be recording, her beautiful face and her smile, and each time it loops he tries to remember exactly how she smelled that day and what it felt like when his hand brushed against her at the small of her back, the roughness of the fabric of her jacket, how her cap bumped his forehead when he dipped his head to kiss her.

And then the clip ends, and even a moment of quiet is too long. He plays it again and again, and he works, because now this is his work, like it never was before, because at least before he was doing this all for some other purpose besides sorting out his empty past. This is all he has left now, and he works as feverishly as he ever did, because if there was one thing he was good at it was _work_, just digging in and figuring out the solution; one day he'd find the solution for this too, each failure is just another chance to get it right, and as thin a substitute these shadows of her are, that's how thin he's willing to spread himself to capture just a little more of her essence; his own physical deficits hardly matter now, the tremor in his hands is of little import, the hollowness at his waist and the fact that he has to tighten his belt by another notch in the morning, his lips dry and cracked and his eyes barely able to moisten when he blinks, this is nothing like torture because torture is never seeing her again, never hearing her voice again, yes he has his recording but it's not the same, not _really_, because when she says his name and she laughs and tells him not to say goodbye, he knows these words were uttered thirty years ago, the smile a thirty-year-old smile, and he never said goodbye

not externally

and not internally.


	4. The Absent Sting

**Prompt: Surely the bitterness of death is at hand**

**In an AU setting in which the Director has been apprehended for his crimes.**

* * *

Among all the silly, inaccurate things I learned from the stories I absorbed as a child was the notion that a person could simply give up after learning his life's quest is doomed to failure, give in to despair and slip into some kind of afterlife after a lifetime of futility. Mind you, I've never been one who easily gives in to failure, but after being jailed for my life's passion, after seeing everything I built crumble in the face of government bureaucracy, after being forced to stand trial and answer for the minutia of each decision I made along the way; after failing her yet again; I was ready to admit defeat.

"Dinner time, Dr. Church." A guard hovers outside my door. I think he has been assigned to ensure I arrive for meals; that or he has for some reason taken it upon himself to care whether or not I eat. I do not show any sign of reviving. See, Death is not so kind to a man like me, a man who perhaps deserves to acquiesce to its cold embrace. The ironic thing about today's version of 'justice' is that I am free to roam the halls of the prison, to bring in such accoutrements of an ordinary life as I wish to help me feel comfortable here as I live out my last days in its halls. I only had my desk chair delivered to the cell—I chose it specially and I don't see any reason to let that decision go to waste. At this time I have an elbow resting on one of the armrests, my chin on my hand. I don't often move from this chair other than to stretch my legs and traverse my cell before returning to my seat. I have much to ponder, especially for someone who is trying his best to remind Death that I deserve its cutting scythe.

"Dr. Church, I won't be leaving you here. I need to escort you to dinner."

My eyes turn in his direction. He wears government-issue body armor, as though I would somehow cause a weapon to materialize and attack him. "If you could help me to stand," I mutter. Cruel, to force me to rise and consume a meal when all I'm wishing for is to waste away. The guard comes and supports me as I rise painfully, my joints creaking and snapping in protest. Once I am settled onto my feet I begin to shuffle toward the dining hall.

The guard follows me. I'm sure attending to me is simply a job assignment to him. I glance to my side to see him watching as I make my way. "Do you know the story of Orpheus?"

The guard frowns slightly. "Sorry?"

I chuckle humorlessly and gaze ahead of me. "Orpheus. Defied the wishes of Hades to travel to the Underworld and rescue his love. Eurydice, her name was. You know that story?"

"No, sir, I'm not familiar with it."

"Ah." I continue to muddle ahead down the hall, listening to the soft scrape of my shoes on the concrete floor. I see the guard continue to look at me with mild befuddlement for a moment; then he seems to banish the exchange from his mind and take up his usual posture. What an existence, ensuring the continued sustenance of the unwilling. Did he have any drive, any ambition, for something more? "I often wonder," I say as we near the dining hall, "how she reacted when he came to rescue her."

The guard seems confounded for a moment. "I guess she'd be happy," he finally replies.

I stump forward, then turn to look at him. "I have this notion she'd curse at him for coming; tell him she didn't need his goddamned help. Too stubborn, or too prideful. You agree with me? You think she'd send him off empty-handed just to prove a point?"

More confused than ever, the guard shakes his head. "No, I think she'd be grateful and leave with him."

"Mm. A romantic." I turn to continue, a cynical chuckle escaping my lips. "No, forced to go empty-handed, and then he wouldn't be able to find the mercy of Death for himself. That's how it should have ended." I stop and address him one more time before going into the dining hall to procure my meal. "The world would be a lot better off if it weren't for you romantics writing the stories."

The guard falters before speaking. "Enjoy your dinner, Dr. Church," he says, almost questioningly.

"If I must." I turn and shuffle inside, leaving the bewildered guard behind.


	5. Empty

She can still remember the first time she felt it, though she doesn't remember the occasion—a flash card drill, or doing a math problem on the chalkboard, something like that—can still feel the way it coiled in her gut, cold and unforgiving. Can still feel it to this day, though the shame of the moment that caused it is long gone.

The feeling of knowing she had made a mistake. That she wasn't good enough.

She thinks now that to anyone else the moment wouldn't have meant much, would have been laughed off, would have been taken as a lesson not to sweat it when things went wrong. It must have been pretty minor, in the long run, if she didn't even remember what had caused it.

That feeling became more than familiar over the years. She really didn't even know where this pressure she had put on herself was coming from. She didn't remember any overt disapproval from her parents when she came home with a less than perfect grade, or when she wasn't the best at everything in her extracurriculars. No, all that pressure came from within, as well as the pressure she put on herself to be more involved, join more clubs, excel at more sports.

Sometimes the feeling became more fierce, the emptiness in her belly giving way to an agitation that filled her limbs and her head and made her feel like she could burst. On those occasions the only relief she could find was to run, pump her arms and legs faster and faster until her lungs were ready to burst. It was a solitary activity, secret, which she concealed as possessively as the feelings that caused her to do it. These days it was her only joy, and that made it something to cherish. Running was something she was good at, yes.

Sometimes she was able to stand outside of herself and see it objectively, fleeting moments, all. When she saw the proud faces of her family when she graduated third in her class—but she should have been first—when she was recommended for promotions after joining the military, when she became the leader of the top squad in the Project. It never lasted long. At least she still gained some relief from trying to pump that sensation through her by running, made only marginally more satisfying by the speed enhancement in her armor.

This in itself was something she strove to perfect—the prefect stride, the perfect rhythm, running just fast enough to avoid outrunning her own feet, modifying her breathing, her stance, her arm movements. Lately her scores on the training floor hadn't been satisfactory, not while Texas was outperforming her seemingly without putting any effort into it. But this was something no one could take from her. It was all hers, and she knew how to use it.

At least, it was. Until they lost control of that briefcase on the highway. She was ready—this was her moment to shine. It was as though she had always been training for this, ever since the first time she'd become overwhelmed by the feelings of inadequacy as a preteen that spurred her to begin running. And then Texas came swooping down from the sky the way she did and before Carolina had even started she was already behind.

Almost before she had a chance to realize what had happened she knew it was over. She tore her helmet off in dismay and caught her breath.

"Better luck next time, Carolina," Texas said.

But this wasn't about luck, or even about winning, anymore. Now the one thing that had never failed her had been taken from her.

She didn't know how to fill that hole.


End file.
